This is a photo of my Long Haul Trucker on a pre-dawn ride. The place is an open space preserve above the Silicon Valley. Normally I come here for short mountain bike rides, but this morning I decided to ride the trucker up to the lookout to have breakfast and watch the sunrise. It always amazes me how versatile the LHT can be. I pretend to be touring out on the silk road, at least for the 30 minutes I am out in the dirt, then I go back to the reality of TPS reports and metropolis.

—Mike
www.iamku.com

Sometimes a warm summer evening ride lingers on longer than one plans, and before you know it, you are riding home at night! – Photo was taken alongside the California Aqueduct, Palmdale, CA.

—Jim

The photo was taken just North of Trinidad, California. We were riding through a dense gauntlet of of trees when down the road there was a heavenly shaft of light pouring through. I waved Laura through and took the photo just as she passed under the light.

—Russ
The Path Less Pedaled

This is from my first century ride on the Larry vs Harry Bullitt Cargo Bike. I wrote up a report and put together a movie of the ride here: http://www.calhouncycleshopcast.com/?p=1259

—Luke

Please note: Luke is an employee of Calhoun Cycle, one of the photo contest sponsors. He’ll be left out of the running for prizes, but we liked his photo so much we wanted to post it anyway.

At the grocery store, waiting for the big Thanksgiving Day load.

Holiday grocery shopping can be a challenge for car-lite/car-free families. We’re hosting family for Thanksgiving this year, so our grocery list was long and the load was more than the bikes could handle in one trip. Fortunately we live near a well-stocked grocery store, so it was easy enough to break up our shopping into multiple excursions. What kind of challenges do you face? Will you be able to do your holiday grocery shopping by bike?

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I receive many inquiries regarding Nitto North Road and Albatross handlebars. For the first time I have a pair of bikes in-house sporting one of each. As you can see, the bars are quite similar.

Albatross on left, North Road on right

The North Road has slightly more abrupt bends. The Albatross sweeps back ever-so-slightly more parallel with the top tube.

North Road on left, Albatross on right

The Albatross has slightly more gentle bends and looks more elegant to my eye. The North Road looks a little more business-like and utilitarian. Functionally they’re nearly identical.

Albatross (top) measures 56cm center-to-center at the widest point; North Road (bottom) measures 54cm center-to-center at the widest point

These photos were taken with a wide angle lens and show some distortion, but they’re still useful for comparison. You have to stare at the bars for a while to really see the subtle differences. Both are supremely comfortable and work exceptionally well for city riding.

Wow, what a list! Our sponsors really stepped up and provided an amazing collection of cool prizes for you. Please, please give them your support. And be sure to click on the linked items below to see photos and detailed descriptions of each item in the prize pool.

We’re going to distribute the prizes similarly to how we’ve done it in the past. The grand prize winner goes first and gets to choose 5 items off of the list, 1st runner-up goes next and chooses 4 items, 2nd runner-up chooses 3 items, 3rd runner-up chooses 2 items, and the remaining items will be distributed among the honorable mentions (we’ll draw randomly among the honorable mentions to determine the order of choosing). We use this method of distributing prizes so that the winners end up with items they can use. We’re going to ask that each winner choose only one prize from each manufacturer. For example, the grand prize winner chooses five prizes, but only one from each manufacturer.

We still have around 30 photos to post over the next few days. Once everything is posted to the site our judges will begin the process of choosing the winners, which should take about 2-3 weeks.

Arkel: Metropolitan Handlebar Bag (1)

Banjo Brothers: Market Pannier (1)

The Bicycle Business: Novatec/Salsa Dynamo Front Wheel (700C) (1)

Breezer: Year-Rounder Panniers (1 pr); Extended Trunk Bag (1); Breezer Vest (1)

Calhoun Cycle: Tubus Logo Rack (1); Twin Six T-Shirts (3); VeloVision Magazines (15)

Civia: Hyland Rear Racks (3); Civia Ortleib Back-Roller Classic Panniers (2 pr)

Gold Country Cyclery: Brooks B17 Standard Saddle (Black) (1); Soma AL North Road Handle Bar (accepts bar-ends) (1)

Minnehaha Bag Co.: Canvas Grocery Bag Pannier (1)

Planet Bike: Escape Pod (1); Versarack (1)

Renaissance Bicycles: Renaissance Bicycles Wind Jacket (1)

Rickshaw Bagworks: Large Zero Xpac (Green) (1)

Rivendell Bicycle Works: Sackville ShopSack (Med, Dark Green) (1); Sackville SaddleSack (Sm, Grid Grey) (1); Nigel Smythe Seat Pouch (Green Tweed) (1); Brass Bell (1); Rivendell Cycling Caps (2)

Schwalbe: Marathon XR Tires (700x40C) (1 pr); Schwalbe Water Bottle (1)

Topeak: Joe Blow Turbo Floor Pump (1); One Up Bike Holder (1); Mini 18 Multi-Tool (1)

Wald: Woody Basket (1)